Have Humans Hit Peak Intelligence?

An article at Neurologica blog by Steven Novella discusses an article at The Conversation that considers the interesting question of whether humans are at or near the limits of what the human mind can comprehend. What prompts the inquiry is an apparent slowing in the rate of advances in knowledge. One issue increasing complexity in technology is needed to push the edge of knowledge forward. Another concern comes from decades of failure in trying to solve some problems that science revealed in the last century.

That raises the question of whether the human mind is at or near the limits of its capacity to comprehend reality to the extent technology can make reality apparent to human senses. For example, we still cannot make sense of some aspects of quantum mechanics (duality and apparent non-locality). The article at Neurologica asks if that roadblock is akin to trying to teach a cat to understand calculus. Maybe the cat brain-mind is simply not equipped to comprehend calculus.

The Conversation article posits the problem like this:

“Will science ever be able to provide all the answers? Human brains are the product of blind and unguided evolution. They were designed to solve practical problems impinging on our survival and reproduction, not to unravel the fabric of the universe. This realization has led some philosophers to embrace a curious form of pessimism, arguing there are bound to be things we will never understand. Human science will therefore one day hit a hard limit – and may already have done so.”

The Novella article responds:

“We are having to work harder and harder for progressively smaller returns. Rather than hitting a wall, I agree that we will likely just wade into the molasses. We will keep pushing deeper and deeper into fundamental theories about how the universe works, but progress will become slower and slower. While I think it is reasonable to conclude that this is likely the long term trend of scientific discovery, I don’t think we are in a position to determine where we are in that arc. You cannot see a pattern when you are in the middle of it. .... But more predictably, we are also developing artificial intelligence. Whatever you think about the current state and the rate of progress of this endeavor, we are steadily developing more and more intelligent machines, and eventually we will very likely develop general AI with capabilities beyond humans.”

Complexity is an issue that the Novella article addresses. Because complexity in both technology and society is increasing, it is possible that at some point in time we will not be able to effectively manage it. That could lead to some sort of spontaneous or semi-managed breakdown and reset of civilization. Novella writes:

“Think of our legal system, our medical system, any bloated piece of software, and of course biological systems. At some point there may be a revolution and cleansing, wipe the slate clean and start fresh. That is the long-term pattern of human history. No state lasts forever. The cleansing does not always have to be a revolution, however, it can be a managed reformation.”

Has peak intelligence been hit in some areas of the law?

Mention of our legal system is interesting. My own experience with federal courts led me to conclude about a decade ago that the trial courts and the supreme court were no longer able to deal rationally or competently with complex legal battles over intellectual property. Supreme court holdings were blowing certain areas of law to pieces on irrational grounds. Generalist attorney-judges, usually liberal arts majors, simply could not understand technical complexity, especially in areas of biomedical research, chemistry and molecular biology. The solution appeared to be to create a separate supreme court[1] for intellectual property and technology-based disputes with the judges composed of chemists, engineers and biomedical and other technical experts. In other words, science had advanced past the capacity of the law to keep up.

Instead of lawyers, some areas of law arguably need scientists, not just generalist lawyers, to judge in the midst of staggering complexity. Arguably, the law at least in certain technology areas is beyond a level it can always deal with competently.

Footnote:
1. Since the 1980's, a single appeals court, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC), has dealt with all patent cases from all states. The CAFC is unique among appeals courts because it has jurisdiction based completely on subject matter instead of geographic location. That court was created because the other federal appeal circuits dealing with patents were hopelessly messed up about not only the law itself, which deals with a couple of intractably complex concepts based on personal judgment, e.g., obviousness, but also increasingly complex technology. The CAFC was one of several congressional attempts to make patent law more coherent and rational and thus predictable. In recent years the supreme court, in its majestic ignorance, has intervened and set patent law back to the incomprehensible, unpredictable black magic of the early 1950s in certain technology areas.

For @#$% sake, choose another word

By Jim Cosgrove
https://www.kansascity.com/living/family/article97041052.html

Consider the F-word. Yup, that F-word. The granddaddy of all curse words. The exhaustingly exploited F-bomb.

Yes, I’ve used it. You’ve probably used it, too. And if you haven’t, you’ve thought about using it.

That emotionally charged word has become a topic of interesting conversation in our house now that school has started.

“I hear that word all the time from the boys in my class,” our younger daughter said.

“Yeah, me too,” said our sixth-grader. “Third grade was about the time I started to hear it.”

While they might hear it more often on the playground and in the cafeteria, it’s not like they haven’t heard it before at sporting events or from strangers walking down the street.

I’m not particularly offended by the F-word. It’s just annoying, like a linguistic gnat. Its overuse renders it meaningless. Like when it’s used to describe something awesome and something heinous. How can it be both?

It starts creeping into the lexicon of kids who want to feel cool and empowered, like they’re getting away with something. And it pretty much continues to be used by those same kids when they’re adults and for the same reasons.

A few years ago, I attended a presentation at work by a well-respected and talented video producer. About 15 minutes into his talk, he dropped an F-bomb, then he paused, and with a mischievous grin said, “It’s cool if I use that here, right?” He had the self-satisfied look of a 10-year-old who just got away with passing gas at Thanksgiving dinner.

Despite some squirming and uncomfortable laughter from most of the nearly 100 people in the audience, not one of us was willing to admit to being “uncool.” Apparently he took this as an expletive-approving green light.

I started counting how many times he used the F-word and finally gave up after a dozen or so. I soon lost interest in the presentation, because his videos, although impressive, were completely upstaged by his lack of class and his disrespect for a professional environment. Maybe some people found his cavalier attitude refreshing and endearing. I guess I’m just not that cool.

From a grammatical standpoint, I must admit that the F-word has impressive versatility. Although it emerged primarily as a verb, its variations can be used as a noun, adjective, adverb, interjection and an effective intensifier. There aren’t many words with that kind of range.

But aside from that, it’s a lazy choice. And I find it boring when comedians use it excessively. The most creative and funny people don’t have to lean on obscenities and shock to get a laugh.

I can appreciate that the F-word has its place when, say, a hammer falls on your toe. And I have to laugh in conversation with my Irish friends who were weaned on the word and can’t help using it in every other sentence. And it’s pretty funny when Grandma drops a cuss word at a family gathering and grabs everyone’s attention.

As a parent and a lover of language and civility, my appeal to habitual F-bombers is to simply show some respect. We’ve taught our girls that a person’s choice of words is often an indication of how they’ll treat others. If people use disrespectful language, they’ll likely be disrespectful in other ways.

Words have power. They carry energy, vibrations and resonance. The F-word has especially low vibration. That’s why it’s a popular choice in negative energy situations of anger and aggression.

Most people avoid lobbing these word grenades around children or their own moms. So why would we not extend the same respect to friends, co-workers and strangers — or to an audience we were being paid to address?

If you want to grab attention with your language, then consider a creative challenge to try something new. Check out a thesaurus. You’ll find thousands of interesting words in there.

Some personal observations by Snowflake:

The F word might be the granddaddy of all curse words, but the C word is far more offensive - just saying.

Otherwise, I would say people who over-use the F word have a F......in' lack of imagination - just saying

Impeachment Hearings & Vetting Information Sources

Ranking member Devin Nunes gave his opening comments before the start of witness testimony in the House impeachment hearing this morning. His version of reality, presumably the GOP-Trump vision, is mostly the opposite of the democratic vision. One of the sources that Nunes dwelled on in his opening statements was reporter John Solomon. Nunes claimed that Solomon's reporting contradicts most or all of the democratic view of what Ukraine did not did not do.

Who is John Solomon?

Wikipedia has a bio on Solomon. The bio includes these comments:

John F. Solomon is an American media executive, and a conservative political commentator. He was an editorialist and executive vice president of digital video for The Hill[1] and as of October, 2019, is a contributor to Fox News.[2] He was formerly employed as an executive and as editor-in-chief at The Washington Times.[3]

While he won a number of prestigious awards for his investigative journalism in the 1990s and 2000s,[4][5] he has also been accused of magnifying small scandals and creating fake controversy.[6][7][8] During Donald Trump's presidency, he has been known for advancing Trump-friendly stories. He played a role in advancing conspiracy theories about wrong-doing involving Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden and Ukraine; Solomon's stories about the Bidens influenced President Trump to request that the Ukrainian president launch an investigation into 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, which led to an impeachment inquiry into President Trump.[2]

Some of Solomon's reporting has been criticized as inaccurate. Wikipedia:

On the same day that The Washington Post published its article, The Hill published another opinion piece by Solomon in which Solomon states that there are "(h)undreds of pages of never-released memos and documents...(that) conflict with Biden’s narrative."[30]

Solomon's stories had significant flaws.[23][20] Not only had the State Department dismissed the allegations presented by Solomon as "an outright fabrication", but the Ukrainian prosecutor who Solomon claimed made the allegations to him is not supporting Solomon's claim.[23][20] Foreign Policy noted that anti-corruption activists in Ukraine had characterized the source behind Solomon's claims as an unreliable narrator who had hindered anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine.[31]

At least for now, House republicans are relying significantly on Solomon to see no impeachable, illegal or improper offenses by the president and duplicity by Joe Biden. Republicans adhere to that despite evidence that key pieces of Solomon's information is false. Some of the documents Solomon relies on for his narrative appear to be innocuous, at least on first blush, e.g., this and this.

Who and what are people supposed to believe?

Few Americans are going to read translations of Ukrainian documents and put them in context. They are not going to spend hours reading and confirming accuracy of facts and narratives by Solomon and others who assert the same. They should not have to do that. It is the job of the mainstream media and our political leaders to distil and accurately convey relevant facts and truths.

These days, the issue of who and what to trust in politics comes up over and over and over. Partisans tell us to trust people like Solomon and/or independent journalists who convey narratives that are either not reported by the MSM or at odds with existing MSM reporting and/or facts of record.

Someone is lying about reality here. The two competing impeachment narratives are mutually exclusive. Both cannot be mostly correct. Both can be mostly wrong, but only one can be mostly correct. What is astounding is the fact that both facts of record and the reasoning applied to them are in bitter, non-resolvable dispute.

In view of the situation, it is fair to call this tribalism, not reasoned politics. One side to the other arguably is much more at fault for the situation than the other. That assumes that one side is mostly right about their facts and logic and the other is mostly wrong. For better or worse, the analysis and ultimate conclusion is clouded by partisan subjective assessments of right and wrong. For most of the president's defenders, the now acknowledged quid pro quo does not amount to anything improper, unethical, illegal or impeachable. Nunes' opening statements seem to make that clear. The moral assessment on the democratic side mostly appears to be or is that at least impeachable acts are at issue.

Which set of facts and narrative is most likely true?

What are the controlling facts here? Most people, maybe about 95%, will mostly believe what their tribe and the various MSM and non-MSM media sources they rely on tell them. In essence, facts are now partisan things. Constant but unwarranted attacks on the professional MSM by the president and his supporters make have succeeded in poisoning the MSM as a reliable information source for millions of Americans. The vacuum that decades of mainly conservative distrust has creates leaves a huge opening for non-MSM sources to begin to look more reliable and trustworthy. Millions of Americans believe, or could come to believe, that Solomon's narrative and facts are reliable and true. In this vacuum, Americans can come to believe that reporters who publish on crackpot sites are telling truth even when they are not.

If that analysis is basically correct, and it appears to be, the people who have fomented unwarranted distrust. This is not an argument that the MSM is completely unbiased or that it never makes mistakes. It is biased and sometimes makes mistakes. The MSM has largely fallen to corporate ownership and the inherent censorship that comes with the profit motive. Despite the shortcomings and flaws, this is an argument that the MSM is still routinely more reliable than many or most the alternatives that people raise to advance their own narratives.

Based on the relevant facts and reasoning that flows from the facts, Nunes assertions and Solomon's narrative are both indefensible and wrong.

If that logic and conclusion is flawed, what are the facts and counter arguments that make it more wrong than right?

The Rule of Law is Falling

A few minutes ago the Supreme Court hinted that it could grant the president a shield to hide bad acts and crimes while in office by making investigation of him impossible. One news source writes:

“WASHINGTON (AP) — Chief Justice John Roberts is ordering an indefinite delay in the House of Representatives’ demand for President Donald Trump’s financial records. Roberts’ order Monday contains no hint about how the Supreme Court ultimately will resolve the dispute. It follows a filing by the House earlier Monday in which the House agreed to a brief halt for the orderly filing of legal briefs, while opposing any lengthy delay. Those written arguments will allow the justices to decide whether they will jump into the tussle between Congress and the president. Last week, Trump made an emergency appeal to ask the justices to block the enforcement of a subpoena issued by a House committee to Trump’s accountants. The House has until Thursday to respond, Roberts said. The high court has a separate pending request from Trump to block a subpoena from a New York prosecutor for Trump’s tax returns.”

This is what the fall of the rule law looks like. That the court would even consider an “indefinite delay” is incomprehensible. Corrupting courts and law enforcement is how tyrants and kleptocrats rise to power. The separation of powers is collapsing before our eyes. In my opinion, if the court really does wind up blocking investigations long as Trump is in office, or even for ‘just’ a month, that would effectively end of any pretense at independence and impartiality that Chief justice Roberts can seriously assert. Pretenses of independence and impartiality are already very weak assertions. Both just might be about to completely disappear. Obviously, the president and his supporters will cheer this development as a return to the constitutional rule of law or something akin to it.

Documentary: Plutocracy

Plutocracy: government by the wealthy; an elite or ruling class of people whose power derives from their wealth

Plutocracy is a five part documentary that describes the brutal conflict between American labor and owners. Each part is about 1 hour, 50 minutes to 2 hours long. This is a low-budget production that includes interviews with historians, e.g., Peter Rachleff. The series relies heavily on documented history and paints a dark, gruesome picture of economic struggles in the US that public schools do not teach. The series is online and can be viewed at many sites, e.g., here and on YouTube.

Part 1 of Plutocracy, Divide et Impera (Divide and Rule), focuses on how American people were intentionally divided by rulers and wealthy people on the basis of race, ethnicity, sex and skill level. The point of fomenting division was to keep society distracted and weak in the face of unified wealth which was fighting hard and dirty to keep people misinformed and in poverty.

When West Virginia coal miners in the early 1900s decided to form labor unions, the owners fought back. Extreme working conditions including long hours, high accident rates and severe health hazards led workers to try organize themselves. They fought back by striking and forming labor unions. The coal industry itself fought back by importing replacement workers, and imposing contracts that barred workers from unionizing. In the process of fighting for freedom from the brutal capitalism that wealthy industrialists imposed, thousands of lives were lost, and thousands more were wounded or jailed.

Plutocracy, Part 1 at 59:11

The documentary suggests that when workers united to fight for fair and equal rights, some progress was possible. The documentary argues that the country's Founders saw a potential for these class conflicts. One can argue that attempts to protect individuals, for example in the Bill of Rights, were directed more at protecting the masses from government than they were at protecting them from capitalists and brutal laissez-faire capitalism. It isn't clear that similar brutalization of workers cannot occur under socialism or communism. This just shows one vision of the American experience.

This documentary makes it much easier to understand and accept the argument that in America, power and wealth are synonymous for the most part. The amazing power that industrialists were able to bring to bear in brutalizing and murdering workers speaks for itself. The question this work raises is how accurate and fact-based is it? Heavy reliance on historical records lend credence to the work and its message. Nonetheless, propaganda can take truth, optionally mixed with lies and misleading content, and present it in different lights, good, bad or ambiguous.

How real is this?

My search for a review of the series by a historian turned nothing up, which is concerning. The left wing sources I scanned all cited this work approvingly. The right wing sources I looked at either don't mention it or I missed reference to it. If anyone knows a historian who has reviewed some or all of this documentary, their thoughts about the historical accuracy of this work would be appreciated. My guess is that this is mostly truth with modest propaganda woven into it.

VIOLENT CRIME: THE US AND ABROAD

The US has more guns per capita than anywhere else in the world. We have massive organized crime, drug and human trafficking, and ever-looming terrorist threats. We have one of the most organized and efficient police forces on Earth. We also have a never-ending news cycle to remind us of these things. With sensationalism in the news, and stories of shooting sprees on a monthly basis, is violent crime really getting worse in America? Where does our perception that crime is growing meet the actual numbers? How does violent crime in America stack up against the rest of the world?
[Tweet “The US has a very specific brand of violence.”]

Perhaps the most difficult part of comparing violent crime in the US and abroad is determining who we’re comparing with the US. Middle Eastern, Central American, and African metropolises are by and large much more dangerous than US cities, but are they representative of the rest of the world?

Most of Europe is safer than Detroit, but are Detroit and Europe representative?

More than 3 out of 4 Americans feel safe walking around where they live at night. While this is a measurement of perceived crime, and not crime itself, the perception is that the US as a whole is as safe as most modern industrialized nations. This is probably bolstered by the fact that 78.6% of Americans have confidence in local police; a measure only topped by Scandinavian nations and Canada. Plus the fact that a large percentage of violent crime in America is concentrated in relatively small geographic areas, and, as we know, the US is a massive place.
[Tweet “The US as a whole is as safe as most modern industrialized nations.”]

Violent crime has declined sharply in the US since the mid 1990’s. While this is due to a variety of changes in enforcement, rehabilitation of criminals, and overall higher standards of living, a large portion of the similarities between the crime levels of US and western European countries hinges on differences in what crimes are reported. The FBI counts four categories of crime as violent crime: murder and non-negligible manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. While aggravated assault is the only assault category included under violent crime reports in the US, other nations include the much more numerous level 1 assault in violent crime reporting. This makes the US appear relatively less violent from a statistical perspective.

Another difference between the US and other relatively safe developed nations is that the US has a much higher homicide rate than similarly “safe” countries. 14,827 people were murdered in the US last year. This is way down from the 24,526 US murders in 1993, yet still leaves the US at 4.8 murders per 100,000 citizens. In comparison, Japan has .4 murders per 100,000 residents. Germany has .8, Australia 1, France 1.1, and Britain–who has recently garnered media attention for being the most dangerous wealthy European nation– has 1.2.

A LAND OF EXTREMES

The most dangerous US cities rank among the most deadly cities in the world. New Orleans, which topped the list in 2012, saw one homicide for every 2000 residents. To put this number in perspective, the average homicide per 100,000 citizen rate for the US is 4.8. Meaning you’re more than 10 times more likely to be the victim of a homicide in New Orleans than America as a whole.

Bear in mind, however, that the cities with the top 5 homicide rates in the world boast substantially higher rates than any other cities on the list. To put the numbers in context, you’re more than 3 times likelier to be the victim of a homicide in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, than in New Orleans, and more than 30 times more likely when comparing San Pedro Sula to the US as a whole.

Another notable trend is that no European or Asian cities are in the top 50 deadliest cities. This complicates the picture of the US standing toe-to-toe with the industrialized world as a low violent crime nation. At the very least, the deadliest cities in the US have many more homicides than the deadliest cities in Europe and Asia. At most, the US is a in a pandemic of homicides, even while other types of violent crime are stifled.

[Tweet “No European or Asian cities are in the top 50 deadliest cities.”]

TYPES OF VIOLENT CRIME

The US has a very specific brand of violence. Perhaps our criminals are just more motivated than the rest of the world, or perhaps having a firearm for every man, woman or child in America ups the ante in confrontations. Either way, the involvement of guns in violent crime (and the defense against violent crime) is a decidedly American phenomena amongst developed nations.

With gun restrictions making it harder to obtain private weapons in the UK, violent crimes involving guns have greatly decreased. The number of total violent crimes, however, is almost double that of the US. Of those crimes, only 19% even involve a weapon, and only 5% of those involve a firearm. That means that of you’re roughly 1/100 chance of being involved in a violent crime in Britain and Wales in any given year, you have roughly a 1/10,000 chance of being in a violent crime involving a gun.

Alternately, in the US your chances of being involved in a violent crime are less than 1/250. Of those involved with violent crimes, however, you have greater than a 1/10,000 chance of being involved in a violent crime involving a gun. In a country with less than half the violent crime, you have a greater chance of being the victim of a violent crime involving a gun.

Here’s where gun control advocates would say that the proliferation of easily available and private firearms enable gun crimes. This is also where gun rights advocates would point to the much lower violent crime rate in a similarly governed and wealthy nation. In a way, they’re both right. Much as the US is both in line with other developed nations on violent crime, and an outlier–with several cities more dangerous than anywhere in Europe or Asia–violent crime in America is as sprawling as the opportunities to commit crime.

https://www.criminaljusticedegreehub.com/violent-crime-us-abroad/